


When He Loved Me

by WritingYay



Series: He's a mess, but he's mine [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Politics, Angst, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Flashback, Fluff, Humour, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Prequel, Psychological Trauma, Slut Shaming, Swearing, references to death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-08 23:59:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17396216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingYay/pseuds/WritingYay
Summary: Pepper follows his line of sight and tries to suppress her laughter.“Surely you know who that is?”“Nope, but I’d like to.” Tony runs his tongue against the seam of his lower lip. “Man, he’s fucking gorgeous.”“That,” Pepper announces in a sing-song voice and slaps him on the shoulder. “Is Steve Rogers.”“What?” Tony yells and jumps in the air to face Pepper, nearly taking out a passer-by on the way. He tries to subtly point at the man and fails. Pepper winces and yanks his arm back down to his side. “That’s Rogers? The biggest political pain in my ass ever?”Pepper nods grimly and rolls her eyes. “You really know how to pick them.”With a pained whimper, Tony throws his head back and clenches his eyes shut. “Why does God hate me?”





	1. The Before

“I’ve gotta say,” Pepper murmurs and swishes her red Versace dress around her ankles like a Kate Bush music video. Tony sighs heavily into his champagne flute and wills his imminent death. “When you invited me to this evening, I wasn’t expecting… this.”

The fundraising evening for an independent political campaigning company- ‘Lightning’- was boring; overwhelmingly and stiflingly boring. In fairness, Tony was used to the parties that Howard used to throw before he was murdered, and they were just weaponry orgies with astonishing illegal activity. 

“You only wanted to come to salivate over Thor.” Tony retorts with a snort and quickly cowers back when Pepper fixes him with a deadly side-eye. 

“I do not salivate over Thor Odinson,” she demands and deftly flips him off. “He’s just a very impressive and attractive man…”

“With a huge dick.” Tony finishes helpfully and manages to swiftly avoid Pepper’s palm making contact with his shoulder.

Pepper hides a smirk and smooths her dress down for the hundredth time that evening- or maybe for that hour- as Tony’s brain was melting through the boredom. 

“I’m not going to ask how you know that.” She raises her eyebrows and Tony shrugs. It was probably good etiquette not to discuss people he’d fucked with his ex-girlfriend. 

“A gentleman never tells…”

“It’s a lady never tells,” Pepper blushes as a very handsome man turns his creepy sights towards her. “And you’re the biggest slag I know.”

Tony gasps and smacks his hand to his heart in mock offence. She had a point, after all. “Touché.”

They mingle with the huge swarm of Armani suits and diamonds for a little while longer before the restless glint in Pepper’s eyes becomes blinding. 

“Everyone here is so old,” she complains and pokes Tony to get his attention; his focus firmly stolen by a pretty blonde commandeering a large crowd by chatting about nuclear physics. “How are we supposed to further our political agenda with these dinosaurs? They’ll all be dead by the time you’re President.”

Tony frowns. “You’ve gotta stop talking like it’s a done deal.”

Pepper turns around with a huge, animalistic grin. “But sweetie,” she simpers. “It is- you’ve got me.”

Midas lights dazzled around Tony as he smiled; he couldn’t really distinguish whether it was Pepper or the copious amount of champagne that was causing his happiness. He links his arm with his best friend’s and kisses her softly on the cheek.

“I’m a lucky man, Pep.”

She rolls her eyes cheekily. “Come on, let’s go and make The Avengers a force to be reckoned with.”

The event stretched on for another few hours. Pepper nearly toppled onto Thor with how closely she was standing to him, but luckily the unpredictable weatherman turned politics bullshitter laughed it off good-naturedly. Tony thought the opposite, especially when he literally had to pull Pepper off Thor’s lap so that the poor man could go and converse with his guests. Nevertheless, Pepper is what Pepper does, and within the hour she had a meeting with Thor’s company forcefully carved into the back of Thor’s hand and a smug smile perched on her scarlet lips. 

Tony had also done rather well for being bored out of his mind and had convinced a handsome man called T’Challa to join their party. Regardless to what Pepper thought, it was because the man was impressively intelligent, and not because Tony found him very fuckable. 

“You’re drunk.” He laughs as Pepper whirls him around the empty dancefloor. “Thor welcomed you into his massive arms and you melted for him, you flirt and- sweet suffering Jesus who-the-fuck-is-that?”

It was at this very moment, that Tony knew he was truly fucked.

The blonde man had muscles that were bulging out of his suit. Yes, he had a blinding smile and oceanic eyes that seemed to look right into someone’s soul, but the stranger was toned and ripped simultaneously, and Tony was fidgety, drunk and horny. 

Pepper follows his line of sight and tries to suppress her laughter.

“Surely you know who that is?”

“Nope, but I’d like to.” Tony runs his tongue against the seam of his lower lip. “Man, he’s fucking gorgeous.”

“That,” Pepper announces in a sing-song voice and slaps him on the shoulder. “Is Steve Rogers.”

“What?” Tony yells and jumps in the air to face Pepper, nearly taking out a passer-by on the way. He tries to subtly point at the man and fails. Pepper winces and yanks his arm back down to his side. “That’s Rogers? The biggest political pain in my ass ever?”

Pepper nods grimly and rolls her eyes. “You really know how to pick them.”

With a pained whimper, Tony throws his head back and clenches his eyes shut. “Why does God hate me?”

“Because you have a dartboard covered in newspaper clippings of Rogers’ party, The Associates, to hammer with pointy missiles.” Pepper points out. “And because you talk shit about your opposition to the press without being bothered to look up who they actually are.”

Tony sends her a withering glare and watches Rogers slide his arm around a beautiful woman’s waist to gaze deeply into her eyes. He looks like something out of a cheesy romance movie and Tony fucking hates the swell of want that bubbles up in his abdomen.

“Well, if you’ll excuse me…” Tony knocks back the rest of his champagne in one to grin at Pepper with double thumbs up. She starts shaking her head frantically as he starts edging closer to Rogers and his group of attractive cronies with another drink in hand. “I’m going to go and introduce myself to my new best friend.”

Ignoring Pepper’s hissed shouts for him to stop being so goddamn dumb, he sidles closer to his sworn opposition and plasters a smirk onto his face. Steve Rogers’ political party- The Associates- was a newer foundation than The Avengers but had strikingly similar policies concerning welfare and the economy. The only glaring differences seemed to be America’s military and border defences, which had become hot topics within the media. Tony talked shit about Rogers’ party all the time but had never bothered to discover the man behind his darkest enemy, and now it was all coming back to bite him on the ass.

A slightly shorter but just as muscly man standing to Rogers’ right nudges him on the shoulder to focus his attention towards Tony. Up even closer, Rogers’ eyes had flecks of forest green marring the planes of blue and Tony revelled in finding a flaw so early on.

“Mr Rogers,” he smiles politely and holds his hand out, which the other man shakes with quiet confusion. “Tony Stark, leader of The Avengers.”

Recognition flashes in Rogers’ eyes before he too was falsely smiling and confidently gripping Tony’s hand. The woman standing with Rogers had disappeared but the beautiful brunette man hovering around Rogers’ shoulder stayed exactly where he was.

“Mr Stark,” Rogers replies with a deep, soothing voice that melts down Tony’s spine like honey. Tony steels himself and pushes down his hot flushes aggressively. “It’s good to see you. How are you enjoying this evening?”

Tony gestures around the room with his drink; a cocky grin stretching his lips.

“Thor certainly knows how to throw a party, but if there’s one thing about me, I never stop working.”

Rogers picks up on the threat almost instantly and his smile darkens.

“Glad to hear it. I assume that’s why we are such worthy opponents?” He questions with a light tilt of his head that increases the puppy dog nature. However, with the dangerous glint in his eyes, he looks a bit more like a hyena. Tony shivers.

“Must be. My god, our Presidential run is going to be good fun.” Not willing to back down from a fight, Tony retaliates with arrogancy that has Rogers frowning.

“I look forward to it.”

Rogers’ right hand man looks decidedly uncomfortable with the tension and shuffles his feet with a cough. 

“Oh uh,” Rogers gestures to the hovering man with his elbow and Tony gives the stranger a professional smile. “This is my bodyguard, James Barnes, but we call him Bucky.”

Barnes nods his chiselled jaw politely but doesn’t say anything which increases his creepiness. 

Tony tries to ignore him and turns back to his enemy with a forced smile. “How has this year been for you?”

“Extremely productive, actually.” Rogers lifts his chin in defiance and it almost makes Tony laugh. “Although, from what you’ve been saying about my party to the press, I think you’re aware of that.”

With a disinterested shrug, Tony brings his glass up to his lips to take a leisurely sip of his drink. “I just remember talking about the legal cases between your party and Nick Fury’s trading company.”

“That was nothing.” Rogers instantly dialled up to high alert at Tony’s revelation. “Fury’s an idiot.”

“Oh yeah,” Tony taps his finger to his chin sarcastically and makes a show of staring at the ceiling in thought. “Extortion charges wasn’t it?”

Rogers clenches his jaw with increased pressure. Jackpot.

“No,” his eyes flash with warning. “They were false data misuse charges that were swiftly dropped when the court proved that they were fantasies.”

“Oh, the muscleman here showed them that they were mistaken?”

“What, Bucky? No, of course not- that’s crazy-”

“You?”

“No!”

“I hear you, I hear you: private hit squad?”

“Just-”

“Because while that is something I do not condone-”

“Stark!” Rogers voice drops a few octaves into a chilling tone that freezes Tony for a heartbeat. He clocks the quick rise and fall of Rogers’ chest as his parted lips grow into a pleased, smug grin. There’s a hint of panic in Rogers’ eyes, but most of the emotion swirling in them is irritation. 

“Please excuse me but I have some more people to converse with.” He winks at Rogers and Barnes and moves to walk away when Rogers shouts over his shoulder:

“I’ll give Thor Odinson your best! I’ve heard that you two used to be… very close.”

Tony suppresses the urge to turn around and tell him to go fuck himself. Instead, he pretends not to have heard the son of a bitch and lets the crowd swallow him up to deposit him back to Pepper.

-

Tony Stark was… well, in one word, an asshole.

“He-he had the nerve to accuse me of extortion and I just…” Steve fumes to a bored looking Bucky and knocks back a shot of tequila with a grimace. His best friend just raises his eyebrows sarcastically. 

“Really? Who, Tony Stark? The son of the most hated man in weaponry? Gee, Steve, thanks for the enlightenment!”

Steve punches his arm and calls him a cheeky bastard. The room starts to pulse with tedium as it radiates from every skeleton roaming around the vast space.

“Fuck it. I’ve had enough, let’s go.”

“Oh, thank god for that!” Bucky’s demeanour does a one-eighty in less than a second as his eyes light up into a relieved grin. “I genuinely thought I was gonna have to have, ‘Here lies Bucky Barnes-Steve Rogers killed him with boredom’, on my gravestone.”

Steve deposits their many empty glasses on a passing tray with a snort and jabs Bucky in the back to get him moving. They float past the lifeless corpses of New York’s highest society with matching shit-eating grins. He catches a glimpse of Stark chatting to a pretty redhead as they leave and sends him a mock salute, to which Stark just clenches his jaw at and promptly ignores him.

As expected, the street outside the venue was heaving with various news anchors itching to start smear campaigns against paralytic politicians. They manage to avoid the many cameras by slipping around the corner and into a grimy backstreet, where a sleek Mercedes is inconspicuously parked. The driver window rolls down to reveal Sam’s grinning face, the harsh light of the streetlamps shadowing his contours. He jerks his head at them as they quickly pile into the backseats in case any of the journalists had spotted them sneaking away.

“So,” Sam begins mildly and raises his eyebrows at them in the rear-view mirror. “On a scale of one to ten?”

“Two.” Bucky complains and cracks his neck with a pleased groan. “It was beyond boring, Thor Odinson has really lost his edge. The only thing that made it a little more bearable was Tony Stark going full arrogant-asshole on Steve’s sorry ass.”

Sam splutters a laugh as Steve sends daggers at his friends.

“Excuse you! It’s not like you jumped in to help out.”

Bucky holds his hands up placatingly.

“I’ve heard that Stark can ruin a reputation in a heartbeat so I’m not gonna open my mouth and make more enemies for a fight between you and him.”

Steve can only blink at the other man in disbelief. “Jumping to my defence is what I pay you for, Barnes.”

Sensing that the conversation could lead the two volatile friends launching at each other in his car, Sam clears his throat and taps on the wheel nervously. 

“What are you gonna do? Stark’s like twenty times richer than you and has better contacts, plus his party is bigger. How are you gonna beat him when he’s your biggest rival?”

“Fairly,” Steve nods and turns his head to stare at the busy bursts of light that constructs New York. “I’m not gonna fight dirty until he does, Sam. Then we’ll see who’s the right candidate for President.”

Sam and Bucky’s eyes meet in the mirror as they share a worried glance. The Associates were still building their mark on society whilst The Avengers had already recruited most of their members. If one thing was for sure, Stark and Steve were going to have to keep their personal hatred out of their political rivalry, or everything was going to go drastically wrong. 

-

Three weeks and two days later saw Tony experiencing pain he hadn’t felt since his childhood.

Pepper had entered his office with her complexion void of any colour. Immediately, Tony was jumping out of his chair to pull the shuddering young woman into his arms.

“Pep? Fuck, what happened?”

She had pulled back to fix her gaze firmly on his; her eyes wet with hurt and red blotches dotted around her cheekbones.

“It’s Happy,” she had whispered hoarsely to drag a finger down Tony’s jaw. The mere mention of one of Tony’s oldest friends caused his heart to go into overdrive. “Tony he, he-”

Tony had pressed his lips together with a shiver. “Oh god.”

“He was drunk last night and stepped out into a road… a motorbike was nearby, and it was dark and- she just didn’t see him, and they couldn’t restart his heart-”

A piercing whistle of white noise reverberated in Tony’s ears, clawing at his brain. 

“What the-”

He felt numb. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt since the days of Howard; not even breaking up with Pepper had made him feel this withdrawn. Tony was aware that Pepper was speaking to him, but the words weren’t clear, and instead her voice was like a tedious hum in his chest. Subdued pain crackled through his nerves, but it was like his body was protecting itself from the full onslaught. His soul had taken a battering already in his rather short life- maybe it was muscle memory to get his senses to shut down.

“-and anything you need cancelled, just let me know… Tony, honey?”

Tony flicks his eyes up to Pepper’s quivering features as she visibly sighs in relief at his alertness. 

“I’m gonna go and make some tea, okay? Stay here.” His campaign manager orders but Tony can’t feel his legs anyway. Seconds trickle by as he waits for Pepper and desperately tries to not stare at the framed picture sitting in his desk: Pepper, Happy and him at a college party, laughing, drunk and carefree.

The shrill whine of his phone ringing makes him jump, his nerves settling into a fiery burn at being forced back into action. He assumes that it would be Rhodey, or Pepper’s Mom checking up on them, so reaches across to pick it up without giving it a second thought.

“Yes?”

“Good morning Mr Stark.” A posh and slightly Australian sounding voice melts through the speaker as Tony frowns to himself in confusion. It was a voice he didn’t recognise. “This is Fallon from The Washington Post, how are you today?”

Tony can only blink in horror. A journalist.

The media never normally dared to ring Tony’s office- he paid people to deal with these sorts of phone calls. How this woman had managed to reach his office line was something he needed to take up with the team, and not politely.

How was he supposed to answer that question? Well, I was just given the devastating news that one of my oldest friends is now dead and we’re not even thirty but yes of course I can talk to you about my latest policy whilst my ex-girlfriend breaks down over a kettle…

“Can I help you?”

Silence.

“Actually yes,” the soft tone from Fallon’s voice disappears. “We have some intel that you had a rather heated discussion with Steve Rogers at an event a few weeks ago. The paper is running the story, so do you have any comments on the situation? Why Mr Rogers made you so annoyed, perhaps?”

Tony grits his teeth, notices how the sunlight reflecting on his framed photos creates a halo of warm light around Happy’s head and opens his mouth.

Looking back, Tony couldn’t be sure whether it was the irritation that he had been disturbed, the realisation that he would never see Happy again, or the memory of Rogers’ nasty scowl as he mentioned Thor that made him say what he did.

Tony told Fallon exactly what he thought about Rogers. Needless to say, the excited tinge to her demeanour when she hung up should’ve warned him really.

-

“Oh, this is bad.” Tony mutters and flings the newspaper down on his desk. Pepper looms over him with a face like thunder and crossed arms as her fingernails tap an explosive rhythm on her wrist.

“You don’t say.”

The headline across The Washington Post branded huge, capital letters into Tony’s eyes. Each word was an ugly reminder of Tony’s loss of temper, of hating Steve Rogers, of losing Happy. 

Pepper snatches the newspaper from the table and clenches it so tightly, angry lines of tension fan out the pages like a lantern. She holds it up to Tony’s face and angrily jabs the page with her index finger.

“You called him the worst thing to happen to US politics since the Depression!” She shouts and Tony closes his eyes in remorse. “The Depression, Tony, you stupid son of a bitch!” 

The Avengers HQ had been receiving hundreds of excited calls from the media as the most infamous rivalry in present day politics exploded overnight. Apparently, Rogers had been giving the world complete radio silence after Tony’s personality assassination had reached the papers- a bit unsurprising really.

“Pep, my darling,” he groans and presses his palms over his face to block out the jarring light. “Please, don’t. I know, okay? I know how this looks.”

He hears Pepper throw down the newspaper and take a deep breath; big enough for Tony to know that she was trying to keep her emotions in check.

“One of my interns, Natasha, started her job today. She spent the first hour being yelled at by horrible journalists because she didn’t know how to answer the invasive questions that they were asking her. She was sobbing by the second hour, Tony.”

It was clearly a story to make Tony feel shitter than before, but also a story to warn him about further interactions with journalists. The awful thing about the whole situation, was that Tony didn’t regret voicing his exact thoughts to Fallon. He hated putting the party and Pepper through his mistakes- he knew Happy would’ve disapproved- but there was a huge part of Tony that rejoiced in getting Rogers back for his awful behaviour at Thor’s event.

“Stop making my staff cry.” Pepper continues with a glaring warning that sends shivers down Tony’s spine. “I’m not joking. Watch what you say, otherwise you’re dealing with the consequences. I’m done. I’ll get Natasha to replace me, seen as she was already thrown in the deep end today.”

Tony was painfully aware of how serious his best friend was being. He knew how much he was hurting his party.

He couldn’t wait for the next opportunity to rile Rogers up.

As a toxic twist of fate, the following week sees Rogers rips apart The Avengers’ latest economy policies on an Australian news channel. Tony yells at him down the phone for an entire five minutes before Rogers hangs up with a cackle that sends butterflies swarming through Tony’s stomach.

Three days later, Tony gets his own back by alluding to a secret relationship between Rogers and Barnes in a press conference; this earns him an actual visit from his rival to his office that ends in them nearly punching each other through the windows.

It’s all quiet for another week before Rogers calls Tony a “useless product of weaponry indoctrination”. Tony’s never been so angry in his life. He goes to The Associates building to scream at Rogers, but ends up slamming him up against a wall to kiss him senseless.

The next day, Rogers- no, Steve- copies one of Tony’s speeches word for word on a Fox interview. For his troubles, he gets a lapful of an angry and horny Tony to drive him over the edge.

After that, the weeks blur into one. They talk utter shit about each other through the media, only to meet up in the evenings to fuck each other into heaven. It was a fair statement to say that Tony had never found such hatred and pleasure in one person.

However, after a particularly explosive conference that left them both hurt and reeling for a few days before two passionate rounds of wall sex in Tony’s office, the ball of fondness and compassion in Tony’s chest was growing. His hurtful words against Steve began to lose their heat until it got to a point where he had to pretend how much he loathed the man. It was clear that Steve was finding it hard to keep their show rivalry fiery as well, judging by how soon he would call Tony with deep apologies after talking bollocks.

The raucous knock at the door startles Tony from his sleepy stupor. He pauses the movie with a groan and drags his body to the front hallway.

A thoroughly pissed-off Steve Rogers was definitely not who he was expecting. 

“Can I help you?” He asks, a bit stunned. Steve’s actually quaking with anger and Tony wants to step back but stands his ground to stare defensively at the blonde man.

“Yes,” Steve growls and pushes through the small gap between Tony and the door frame to slam the door behind himself. “You fucking can.”

Tony’s mouth deceives him and lets a small whimper of terror escape; he sounds a bit like a dying parrot. 

“Oh?” 

“My legs are open twenty-four hours like 7-Eleven?” Steve roars, pushing Tony in the chest so that he stumbles backwards under Steve’s strength. It throws him off for a heartbeat before he’s squaring up to the taller man with gritted teeth. Ah yes, his interview that day had been an interesting one. 

“You’ve slept with the majority of New York!” Tony yells back. Steve scoffs and rolls his eyes with a forced laugh.

“You’re a fucking hypocrite!”

Tony’s expression shutters off into one of rage. “Get the fuck out of my house!”

Steve slowly starts to shake his head and then opens his arms in a display of arrogance. His mouth twists up into a dangerous smirk that screams hurt and destruction. 

“Make me, baby.”

With a predatory snarl, Tony stalks up to Steve in two long strides to jump towards his chest, legs winding around his waist. Steve’s arms immediately catch him and rest under his ass as they claim each other’s mouths with desperation. Steve bites down on Tony’s plump lower lip to demand entrance as Tony opens up pliantly. He licks into Tony’s mouth with a pleased groan; Tony’s palms sliding down his taut stomach and coming teasingly close to his waistband.

Tony throws his head back in exhilaration when Steve latches his mouth onto the fragile juncture between collarbone and neck- his teeth grazing promisingly down the planes of golden salt. 

“You’re an animal.” He breathes into Tony’s neck; Tony laughing in surprise at the fondness dripping through his voice. Out of nowhere, Tony clenches his thigh muscles around the jutting bones of Steve’s hips in warning, their crotches pressing together heatedly.

“Yeah? Well- oh, oh fuck…” Steve licks a long stripe up behind his ear. Tony’s trails off into a breathy moan before turning his head to explosively slot their lips together. “Let me show you just how much.”

Afterwards, when Tony’s curled up on Steve’s chest as his enemy draws lazy patterns into his hips, Tony sighs heavily enough to dislodge his head from Steve’s tanned shoulder.

“Stop thinkin’ so loud.” Steve murmurs and presses his lips to Tony’s sweaty temple. Tony huffs into Steve’s pec which causes him to shudder involuntarily at the ticklish breeze of air that furls over his nipple. 

“Sorry.” A hot ball of guilt sits in Tony’s stomach. What was he doing? He and Rogers were supposed to be political rivals; not fucking in every available hour they had. What if the media found out? It would be the sure end of their careers.

Howard’s nasty grimace fades into his head and he swallows tightly. 

“Sorry I shouted at you.” Steve apologises, his fingers gently ghosting up and down Tony’s ribs. 

It’s at this moment that Tony realises how so very fucked he is.

He, he lo-

He loves this man.

Out of nowhere, Tony feels suffocated. Steve’s muscles feel as hard as rocks and the arm casually draped over his stomach is like lead. He needs to get out, he needs-

“I’ve gotta be somewhere, and you shouldn’t be here.” He blurts out and removes himself from Steve’s grasp to re-dress himself whilst throwing Steve’s clothes at his head to get him moving. There’s no hiding the surprise and disappointment that clouds Steve’s features.

“In case I’ve deeply offended you- which, I’m very sorry for- I don’t think you’re a whore. There’s nothing wrong with your body count and I shouldn’t have used it against you.” Steve says, too softly for Tony’s hay-wired brain to really process. Instead, he watches Steve grapple with his jeans until he’s fully dressed. He quickly throws some red sunglasses over his eyes to hide the bitter self-loathing that tortures them.

“Whatever, you can say what you want. I guess I deserve it.”

Steve physically blanches. “What? No, you don’t!”

“It was an easy dig that I’m not surprised you used- after all, there’s a running joke in the city that I’m sleeping my way to Presidency.”

“Just shut up for a second-”

“I mean, I’m sleeping with you, aren’t I-”

“When will you get it into your stupid, overly-egotistical head,” Steve grinds out with all the attitude of Pepper at her most frustrated. “That I don’t see Tony Stark, Bullshitter Extraordinaire. I don’t see the cocky, selfish and rude dickhead that the world sees- well, at least not all the time. I don’t see the broken man who was painfully let down by his father. I don’t see all those people Tony-”

“Steve-”

“I see you.” The younger man moves to cup Tony’s jaw with both hands and slide his thumbs up to his temples; the sunglasses perched on Tony’s face slide off with Steve’s fingers. Tony slips his eyes closed to catch the tears pooling in his lashes. “I just see you.”

Tony flicks his gaze up to meet his saviour’s and lets all of the pain, the hurt, the sheer excruciation that Howard had left him with bleed into his features. 

“Then you should close your eyes.” He tells Steve hollowly with a firm nod. “Nothing about me is pretty.”

He nearly gets knocked out by how aggressive Steve shaking his head is. 

“You’re beautiful. Fuck, Tony… sweetheart, you’re the most exquisite person I’ve ever met. You’re an asshole seventy percent of the time, yes, and my god does Pepper deserve a pay rise but Tony- I love you.”

Tony stumbles backwards in shock and blinks at Steve rapidly as his heart starts to go into overdrive. Steve shrugs his shoulders like he hasn’t just dropped the biggest bombshell in the world with an apologetic grimace. 

“You… you-” Frustration creeps into Tony’s voice and Steve’s eyes widen. “You fucking madman.”

Well, that wasn’t what Steve had expected to hear.

“Tony-”

“No!” All at once, Tony boiled over. It was like somebody had flicked a switch; suddenly, Tony could feel and it hurt, so much. “Listen here one goddamn minute. You’re insane to be involved with me at all Steve, let alone lo-… have romantic feelings. We’re political rivals, arch enemies. Whatever golden bubble you’re in right now, it won’t last. It won’t. We’ll loathe each other by the end of it, believe me.” He crosses his arms adamantly as Steve exhales heavily and drops his head. 

“I just-”

“You were a good fuck, Steve!” Tony yells at him and suddenly everything goes into slow motion. Steve snaps his head up hard enough to make his neck ache and takes in Tony- shuddering through hysterics- with wide eyes. “You made me forget Howard for a while and it felt good! You were my therapist, asshole, not my boyfriend!”

Pain clenches down on Steve’s chest like a vice. He visualises Tony reaching into his torso and pulling out his heart with one tanned hand and it throbs like a motherfucker.

“You don’t mean that.” He whispers, his vision blurring. Tony hangs his head and laces his fingers behind his head in a protective gesture. Steve can’t breathe; the media storm was bad, but this… this- this was unbearable. “I won’t give up on you, I won’t.”

Tony’s lips twist into a sob as he bites his lip hard enough to make it bleed. 

“Get out,” the words were nothing more than exhalations from Tony’s mouth but they were deafeningly clear to Steve. “Please, Steve just- leave, now.” 

He doesn’t look back as he runs out of the door. The panic is enough, swelling in his throat to choke his airways. But his love isn’t enough. He isn’t enough.

-

“You,” Clint says a few weeks later and throws some files down on the desk Steve’s falling asleep at with a grimace. “Look like shit.”

Steve sighs into the wood and cracks his neck to flit his eyes upwards. He gets an upside-down frown from Clint that screams pity so closes them again in acceptance.

“You flatter me, Clint.”

The other man rolls his eyes and pushes his shoulder so Steve has no choice but to sit up with a groan. He can see four of Clint as he desperately blinks to ward off the distorted shapes of dizziness that clouds his vision. All four Clints give him an unimpressed huff.

“No, seriously, you look like absolute crap.”

“I know,” Steve’s voice is gravelly from the little sleep he’s getting at night so he clears his throat to try and resolve how tight it is. “This is what heartbreak looks like.”

Clint’s expression immediately softens.

“He’s an idiot,” he tells Steve, who can only nod in agreement. “You deserve better.”

“Do I?”

Clint scoffs. “You deserve someone who loves you back, man.”

It’s a true statement, but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less. Steve did deserve somebody who loves him back, and the fact that it isn’t Tony aches; hot and pulsing and unrelenting. 

On the other side of the state, Pepper was attempting a very similar conversation.

“You’re an idiot.” She tells Tony, who pinches the bridge of the nose to relieve pressure on his head. He swivels on his chair away from his desk to take in Pepper’s flagging posture. 

“Pep-”

“You finally found somebody who makes you happy, happier than I ever made you, and you freaked out. That’s okay, you’re allowed to freak out, but Tony sweetie-” Pepper drops to her knees in front of her best friend to run her fingers through his unruly hair. “You can’t throw a bond like that away.”

Tony raises his chin a fraction to look at Pepper properly for the first time in ages. The breakup with Steve had been- well, fucking awful- and he had said loads of shit he didn’t mean. God, Howard really had fucked him up. The redhead looks exhausted and Tony’s stomach flips with guilt.

“I really fucked this up.” He whispers hoarsely; Pepper letting out a little whine as tears bubbled up in her eyes.

“No honey,” she leans forward to wrap him up in a hug as he clings onto her waist to press his nose into her hair. “Not yet- you can still fix it.”

“I love him Pep.”

Pepper squeezes her eyes shut as a sob vibrates through her skin. It killed her, to see Tony so broken. She smooths a hand down the back of his neck and pulls back to gaze deeply into his eyes.

“I know you do, darling. But it’s not me you need to be telling that, it’s him.”

Tony didn’t really know how Pepper had managed to shove him into a car to speed him across the state to Steve so quickly, but here he was. His hands were tightly entwined on his lap, constantly twisting and contorting. 

He couldn’t just barge into Steve’s office and announce he’d made a mistake, could he? Steve was gonna think he’d just changed his mind and wouldn’t believe him. What if he threw him out? Tony had realised that life without Steve was shit. After the whirlwind of traumatic horror that was his childhood, followed by the trouble-induced chaos of his adolescence, Steve was safety. Maybe that’s what had freaked him out?

Swarms of questions barrelled through Tony’s head, making his headache worse. After a while, he was sub-consciously aware of how close they were to Steve which just increased the nausea.

“Pull yourself together Stark.” He mutters to himself and digs his fingernails into the fragile skin on his palms. “This is the man you love, and hate for a job. He won’t kick you out or laugh in your face…” Out of nowhere, something his Mom had always said about him slipped into his mind and his heart nearly burst. “He… he has your heart.”

The car screeches to a halt. Tony exits with shaking legs and peers up at Steve’s building. Once he arrives at the right floor, after he’d nearly bottled it on the way up, the elevator doors slide open.

Bucky’s standing next to a plant pot whilst chatting to a young woman with tousled auburn hair. He looks up to see Tony as his eyebrows jump to his hairline. 

“In one gesture, Barnes, I need you to point where Steve is.” Tony garbles quickly and disappears through some glass doors when Bucky wordlessly points to his left, still clearly in shock.

Tony bursts through the doors, and screeches to a halt at the panicked, baby blue eyes with flecks of beautiful forest green that dart up from the desk.

The two men stare at each other for a heartbeat before Steve’s saying very slowly: “What the fuck?”

A deep, shaky breath echoes from Tony’s chest. 

“You love me.” Tony mutters dumbly with wide eyes, pupils blown wide with disbelief. Steve’s mouth drops open in shock before he’s nodding vigorously and moving closer to the trembling man.

“I do.” Steve repeats as a grin blossoms on his face at Tony’s realisation. “I’m a madman, apparently, but yeah- I do.”

It takes a second of suffocating tension, but suddenly Tony is nodding back and opening his arms with a smug smirk. Steve’s chest constricts with excitement at this beautiful, complicated… whirlwind of a man. They stare at each other silently before Tony bites his lower lip and looks up at Steve shyly through his eyelashes.

“I love you too.” He whispers, and all Steve can see are stars.


	2. The After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Because talking about my emotions- my… feelings- got kicked out of me by Howard by the age of about seven. I didn’t trust anybody with my heart, Steve, not even Pepper for a long time afterwards. How could I say: yeah hi, I know you’ve just confessed your undying love to me, but compassion and care is something I’ve never been given so you sort of scared me half to fucking death when you broke down my walls.”

Matilda- their alarmingly young therapist- can only sit there with a stunned expression as Tony leans back in his chair.

“You- you-” Steve stammers, his eyes looking decidedly glassy. Tony tenses and tilts his head tiredly. “You’ve never told me any of that-”

“We had great sex after that.” Tony pointedly doesn’t answer Steve and instead hides behind humour to shatter the frozen panic on Matilda’s features. “Then we were married the following year.”

“Tony.” He feels his body cower away even more when Steve uses his scary, political- alpha- voice to command his attention. “You’ve never shared any of your feelings about that time with me. Why?”

Matilda raises her eyebrows slightly in support and Tony drops his hands to his knees with a loud huff.

“Because talking about my emotions- my… feelings- got kicked out of me by Howard by the age of about seven. I didn’t trust anybody with my heart, Steve, not even Pepper for a long time afterwards. How could I say: yeah hi, I know you’ve just confessed your undying love to me, but compassion and care is something I’ve never been given so you sort of scared me half to fucking death when you broke down my walls.”

He sits there feeling pathetically empty as Steve blinks at him, eyes wide and lagging. 

“You spent all that time hurting.” Steve whispers, clearly voicing his thoughts aloud. Tony hangs his head as tears prick violently behind his eyelids. “And you never let me help you.”

A horrible, thick silence descends on the trio; the only audible sound being the monotonous tick of the analogue clock in the room. It’s clear that Matilda doesn’t really know what to say, judging by how quickly her eyes are darting between them like fireworks. After a few seconds of Steve digging his nails into his palms and Tony trying to swallow past the boulder in his oesophagus, she clears her throat determinedly. 

“This is not a moment for insult-slinging,” her voice is firm and authoritative but carries a gentle tone to it that makes Tony feel guilty and relaxed simultaneously. “The months around when you two first met sound hectic and full of contrasting emotion. I appreciate you sharing that time with me, Tony. I can only imagine how hard it must have been.”

“Politics has ruined our relationship from the start.” Tony nods hoarsely and Steve can’t help but look away as his stomach drops. “I tried to put my career first when we first got together and when I received the Presidency-”

“You did that because you were scared, not because having a job in politics has ruined us.” Steve interrupts with a sharp slap to his own leg for emphasis. “Take some goddamn responsibility.”

Tony whirls on his husband, his expression alarmingly thunderous, and jabs his fingers into Steve’s personal space with every snapped word: “Really? Because it really fucking seemed like I was to blame when you were dying in hospital after some gunmen tried to murder me because of my job, right?”

Steve pales in a second. He inhales sharply at the way Tony’s shivering under his clothes and shakes his head. “I didn’t say that.”

“No, you said I should take responsibility for nearly ruining our relationship multiple times. That’s exactly what you said, Steve.”

“We can’t blame our marital issues on the fact that we’re in the public eye,” Steve reiterates gently, concluding that a riled-up Tony was not going to end well for neither him nor Matilda. The young woman had masked her face to look impassive, but Steve knows fear well enough to identify the lost apprehension in her features. “That’s what I said. What has happened to us for the last decade has happened because of who we are both individually and together, not because we’ve chosen to talk shit as a day job.”

Tony opens his mouth to argue back when the reality of Steve’s words sinks in, and he has to bite back his retort grudgingly. 

“The shooting wasn’t your fault, sweetheart.” The brace caging Steve’s hip and upper leg whirs sickeningly when he flexes the bone. “But it wasn’t the Presidency’s fault either. You can’t blame what happened on your occupation, because then those sick bastards have won.”

“You need to let the past go.” Matilda chimes in softly, her fingers yearning to reach for Tony and wipe away the tears collecting at his waterline. Never in her few precious years as a certified therapist had she seen such pain in two individuals. She had never seen the effect of childhood trauma as explicitly as the anxiety slicing through the President sitting a foot away from her shoes. “Sir, you have a damn lot to be thankful for, and you must not jeopardise the good things by allowing the bad to continue kicking you up the ass.”

Her vigorous body language as she made her speech brings a grudging smile to balance on Tony’s lips. He lets his eyes slide from Matilda to his husband and finally- finally, goddamnit- allows himself to breathe.

Steve swallows heavily and lets his shoulders properly drop for the first time in months. “Don’t you dare put up with the nightmares. They are not something that you should feel like you have to contend with, baby.”

Matilda nods in agreements, her hair bouncing around her jaw. “We can both do our best to help you cope with the nightmares, but we will not stand back and watch them ravage you because you assume that they should just happen.”

“I let Howard hurt you for too long after the bastard died,” Steve chokes out; a warm flush of frustrated red climbing up his neck as he cries out of sympathy and anger for the hell his husband had gone through. “No more. No more, Tony, I promise.”

“Tony,” Matilda leans forward over her knees and places a solid hand on his shuddering thigh- present and comforting and promising. “Why did you agree to this session?”

“Because I want to get better-”

“And?”

“Because I love him.” Tony demands with all the certainty he could muster. Then, when he turns to face Steve with red-rimmed eyes: “I love him.”

Matilda smiles, broad and pleased, as Steve leans forward to knock their foreheads together comfortingly. 

“My beautiful, courageous warrior.” Steve mutters into Tony’s skin, the other man sliding his head onto Steve’s shoulder to twist his fingers into his hoodie. “I love you so fucking much.”

The seconds trickle by like water: impatient, swift and impossible to catch. Matilda bites at her lip as a wave of emotion cascades through her lungs, but she realises how important her guard is and inhales it deep into her nerves. Something that Tony had mentioned pops into her head and it makes her smile slightly.

Tony Stark’s Mom had helped him to realise that Steve had his heart. Now, as she surveyed the two grown men finding starved solace in each other after worlds of undeserved pain, a gentle realisation settled in the room which lifted the atmosphere from black to gold. She at long last saw the future, and knew that Tony Stark was finally going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is it. After many months, many (many) hours of writing and re-writing snippets, this little bundle of joy is finished. When I first started this, I never thought that it would reach the length that it has, nor did I think it would inspire/excite/make cry this amount of people. You're all amazing and I'm so grateful for the support.
> 
> For old times sake, let me know what you thought of this last bit- if that's not possible, smash it a Kudos as anything is appreciated.
> 
> Have a brilliant week, and I'll be back very soon-
> 
> WritingYay x

**Author's Note:**

> So, we've reached the end! These two chapters signify the end of this odd little series- I have loved writing this collection for you guys and these fics are definitely my favourites!
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me, you're the best!


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